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The Forest and Agriculture in West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

W. B. Morgan
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Extract

A recent generalization on cropping and cultivation in Africa reduces the variety of environmental types to two: ‘savannahs’ and ‘forest and woodland’. Another work simplifies West African anthropology by introducing two regions linguistic in origin: the West Sudan and the Guinea Coast. The latter, misleadingly shown as the western portion of a ‘yam belt’ or ‘corridor’, includes the ‘forest’ and a small southern portion of the ‘savannah’. Such regional generalizations invite critical assessment of the relationships displayed between crops, agriculture and the environments. It is proposed to take one of these last as termed above: the ‘forest and woodland’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , July 1962 , pp. 235 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1962

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References

1 Wrigley, C., ‘Speculations on the economic prehistory of Africa’, Journal of African History (1960), I, 2, 289–203 (197).Google Scholar

2 Murdock, G. P., Africa; its peoples and their culture history (New York, 1959), 71, 223, and 245.Google Scholar

3 Richards, P. W., The Tropical Rain Forest (1952).Google Scholar

4 Keay, R. W. J., Vegetation map of Africa south of the Tropic of Cancer (1959) (explanatory notes).Google Scholar

5 In this context ‘harmattan’ refers to the occurrence of air of unusually low relative humidity and associated with dust composed of very fine particles frequently giving the appearance of mist or fog.Google Scholar

6 Wrigley, op. cit., 197.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Murdock, op. cit., 69.Google Scholar

9 Dalziel, J. M., The useful plants of West Tropical Africa (London, 1937), 488–93.Google Scholar

10 Amongst the Yoruba D. esculenta is known sa ‘ishu alubosa’, the onion yam, i.e. introduced after the onion, which itself was introduced by the Hausa (alubosa = Hausa albasa = Arabic al basala).Google Scholar

11 Miège, J., ‘L'importanceéconomique des ignames en Côte d'Ivoire. Repartition des cultures et principales variétés’, Revue internat. de Bot. Ap. et d'Agric. Trap. (1952), XXXII, 144–55.Google Scholar

12 Keay op. cit., and Outline of Nigerian Vegetation (2nd edition, 1953).Google Scholar

13 In Leaba in northern Nupe near the northern limit of yam cultivation the yam is harvested once only, i.e. seed yams cannot be produced. Nadel, S. F., A Black Byzantium (1946), 220.Google Scholar

14 See Irvine, F. R., A text book of West African agriculture (1934), 119–34.Google Scholar

15 Guinea corn or sorghum is described by Murdock as a staple only amongst the Nupe of ‘Southern Nigerians’, whereas it is a staple of the Oyo Yoruba, closely associated with yam cultivation for which it frequently provides a trellis.Google Scholar

16 Miège, J., ‘Les cultures vivrières en Afrique occidental’, Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer (1954), VII, 25–50. The suggestion has been made that the limit once lay farther to the east since yams are claimed to have replaced rice as a staple in Ghana in the seventeenth century.Google ScholarMeyerowitz, E. L. R., The Sacred State of the Akan (1951), 46–8.Google Scholar

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19 A useful article on Digitaria is: Portères, R., ‘Les céréales mineures du genre Digitaria en Afrique et en Europe’, J.A.T.B.A. (1953), II, 349–86 and 477–510.Google Scholar

20 Taro or eddoes, Colocasia esculentum, has been long established, but to some extent has been replaced by Xanthosoma sagittifolium—possibly introduced into Ghana from the West Indies in 5843, Dalziel, op cit., 484.Google Scholar

21 The Coleus spp. are not ‘forest-zone crops’ (Wrigley, op. cit., 198), but generally mature in five or six months and are restricted to the savannahs.Google Scholar

22 The argument for the introduction of yams into the rain forest from the savannahs has been made in the Leverhulme Trust, the West African Commission, 1938–9, 1943, 56–59, and supported by Wrigley, op. cit., 198. One may note that Yoruba legend suggests movement of cultivators in the opposite direction, although it may refer to a period when agriculture was already well established. For the early planting of kola see Chevalier, A., and Perrot, E., Les kolas and les noix de kola (1911).Google Scholar

23 Forde, C. D., ‘The Cultural Map of West Africa’, Trans. New York Acad. of Sciences (1955), Series II. Murdock, op. cit., 207ff.Google Scholar